I have about 3000 hours, which I know is not a lot compared to some people and a lot more than some others. Those hours vary from flying a Super Cub in Alaska to flying a C-130 on NVGs in Iraq and Afghanistan and a whole lot of other stuff in between, and the one constant between the spectrum of my experience is that judgement is key, regardless of the type of flying or where you are doing it. No surprise there. I often make decisions that I look back on and think maybe I should have done that differently, or not. In the 130 community, where there is a crew of six providing inputs (not to mention the 25 regulations I operate under or the guy on the other end of the radio telling me what to do), we often debrief decisions extensively, to get it better for the next time, and there is alot of operating in what we call the gray, where decisions aren't black and white, no matter how much written guidance there might be out there.
My point is that launching into the conditions you launched into, and making decisions along the way about whether to continue or turn around, shows excellent decision making and reasoning skills on your part. The fact that you are willing to open yourself up to criticism on a board like this is further testament to your desire to learn and your judgement. Let Anne say what she may; she wasn't there and if she had been she might have made a different, but also correct (considering her confidence or skill level), decision. There is no clear-cut answer in many of these aviation questions -- today it is wind in your cub, tomorrow it might be a maintenance problem in another airplane, in my line of work it might be an evaluation between the threat or weather/terrain conditions at a particular airfield versus the importance of the mission. In all cases, what is important is that you are aware of the factors, and continually update your decision whether to launch, press on, turn back, or whatever. Every pilot out there has made bad decisions in his or her past, and we all learn from that... it is experience.
Now, as to the more basic question about wind in a Super Cub, let me relate this story. About three years ago when I had about 50 hours of tailwheel time and thought I had it pretty well figured out, I went up to the paved strip at Wasilla one day when the wind was blowing variable out of the northeast at 14 gusting to 22, because I could handle that amount of wind in a 172 with little trouble. I did several wheel landings but I had to work for them and I scared myself a little. A few weeks later I went to one of those FAA Safety Seminars in Anchorage where the topic was Super Cubs. One of the speakers was one of the Alsworths from Port Alsworth, and (I think it was Glen) he went on to talk about the pilot that he employed that flew nothing but Super Cubs, and how this employee had thousands of hours flying Super Cubs in Alaska and he never went anywhere in a Super Cub if the wind was greater than 20 knots. And I thought, how stupid am I, me and my 50 hours flying around in that kind of wind when the real professionals won't do it. To this day, three years and 700 Super Cub hours later, I still use 20 as my threshold. If a guy says he can fly a Cub in a 30 knot crosswind, then more power to him. He is either a lot better pilot, or a lot worse.
Sorry for the length, but I hope you got the message. Keep on keepin on, cub chick.
